Painting in November!

Painting in November … and in Iowa! Who would have ever thought? My plan is to take off work early and use some vacation hours to try to get some painting done. Well anyway that was the plan.

So I was able to leave early and beat it home to get organized and also to grab something to eat. Of course I couldn’t find anything that I thought looked good, so I made a huge pot of spaghetti noodles. After they were cooked, into a bowl they went with some butter and salt and pepper. Yum! Well at least for the first 10 minutes it was Yum and then I swear they expanded in my stomach Yimerz! OK, it probably didn’t help that I put almost 3/4 of the box into my bowl that probably should be feeding a family of four –  but I was pretty hungry! Now to go outside and work it off!

With my new paint brush in my hand off I went. I scraped the wood  last night so I knew that a good part of that was done. It was going to be windy today but I just needed to grin and bear it because you all know how much I just love wind! 

First thing is to find an ice cream pail. I like to use these pails for my paint instead of lugging around a big 5 gallon pail. Makes sense right? Then I changed my clothes and I’m ready. 

Well I started on the old milk house and to say that I had troubles is putting it mildly. I stopped a couple of times to see if my pail was leaking because I had more paint flying that I have ever had in my life. My ‘nice’ barn clothes were not anywheres being nice now! But I didn’t find any holes in my pail so it must be just because it was windy. With the time changing it gets dark so soon so I knew that there wasn’t any time to waste!  So I have to tell you what I did. As you can tell in the pictures – this is the shed that Daryl replaced the window. And when I painted the first coat on that spot, the holes where the nails were looked really bad. Well it kinda bugged me and after I got the other sides done I went back to look at it. And guess what? It still looked bad. So I thought about it for awhile and came to the conclusion that I think I knew how to fix it. I headed to the bathroom and found exactly what I was looking for. Toothpaste. Yup, Toothpaste. I mean if I can put butter on our garage doors and make them work better, why can’t you put toothpaste in the holes to fill them up?  I couldn’t come up with any reasons why not so that’s what I did. And did it work? You bet! After it dried I put another coat of paint on it and it looked really good. It might not be the fix for everyone, but it sure worked for me! 

Just needing a little Love

Looking Good!

The only real trouble that I had (other than paint flying) is that I had a big wasp or hornet nest in the top peak of the roof that I had to knock down because I had to paint there. Well I did knock it down but the wind caught it and just like that it was in my paint! Of course your first instinct is to grab it and I was sure glad that there wasn’t any hornets in it when I palmed it out! Next was the cow yard fence. I sure was hoping that I didn’t need to fill in any holes on this fence because I was out of toothpaste for the night. But after putting the first coat on it last year I was sure that it was going to be OK. But what wasn’t working so well for me was my stupid paint brush. It was new and cost me around $10 and seriously should work so much better than what was going on for me. I even looked at my ice cream pail again to see if it was lop sided and was spilling paint. Dumb idea yes, but a Desperate idea! Well at this point I thought just roll with it and in no time – BAM this fence was done!

Just needed another coat to make it nice

Finished both sides of the fence

I could tell that the day was winding down and I was getting even a little cold,  but I had one more fence on my list. And finally I figured out what was going on with my paint brush. The paint wasn’t sticking to the bristles for some reason. After I stood and looked at it with paint on it, the paint oozed out of the bottom of the brush. It was like if you cleaned out a brush with water and the water was coming out. Soooooo not cool! But the sun was on the West side of the farm by now and I just had to hurry to get it done. And guess what? Shazam!! I got it finished just as it was almost too dark to paint. Check it out. Whoo Hoo! Looking good even if I say so myself! With it being kinda late when I got done, I was sure glad that the rain isn’t supposed to come until later tomorrow night. 

I should paint two coats on it but for now she’s only getting one

Done for the year!

And for the paintbrush? I took the ice cream pail and paintbrush and threw them away for good! I also have to remember to pick up more toothpaste for tomorrow 🙂